What Nintendo Wants

"A year ago, people were still advocating that we get out of the hardware business," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing.

Nintendo's George Harrison.

It's been a good year for Nintendo, as we've already noted in today's article, but Harrison admits there's one thing he'd like to see more of on the Nintendo DS handheld game device in the United States market.

You see, in Japan, some titles have already cracked straight out of the games category altogether. There are titles for the DS that teach cooking, English and etiquette, for example. In the U.S. a brain stimulating game called Brain Age has been a success (a sequel is on the way), but Harrison said he'd like to push for more titles on the mobile device that aren't strictly games.

"We haven't done that as well as we should," he said.

This year's E3 is a little less of a zoo than it was in previous years, as it is taking place in a bunch of hotels in Santa Monica, rather than at the LA Convention Center. Also, the number of attendees has been slashed from 60,000 to under 5,000.

It was the game industry that pushed for this downsized version of the show, but Harrison admits he has a little nostalgia for the craziness of the previous versions of this show. "Though it's a huge expense, you sort of miss the buzz of the convention center," he said.

Comments

Honestly... E3 was terrible this year. There was no interesting news and "exciting" information that I normally expect from it. It's not the Journalist's fault, no, it's the downsizing. The limiting of the independent smaller game companies that make huge contributions to the industry. This time last year I was very excited about what the coming year had in store for the gaming industry. Now, I'm excited to hear the real news that will be coming out of the Game Developers Conference (GDC).